In Afghanistan, A Week Of Crises Raises Troubling Questions

By Christian Caryl for RFE/RL

Afghanistan has been in chaos for the past 30 years, leaving little room for optimism. But the events of this past week have shocked even the most pessimistic observers.

On June 28, Taliban militants attacked a heavily guarded luxury hotel in Kabul, an assault that ended only after Afghan security forces called on their international allies for help.

The attack came just hours after the chief of the Afghan central bank fled the country and resigned. On June 27, he turned up in Washington, D.C., to denounce the government of President Hamid Karzai for its failure to clean up a smoldering banking scandal that has been threatening to derail government finances and destabilize an already fragile national economy.

The week before — on June 23 — a special court that had been commissioned to examine allegations of fraud during last year’s parliamentary elections declared that it was invalidating the mandates of 62 members of the 249-member parliament. That decision essentially suspended the assembly’s work until the lawmakers are replaced.

The court decision was one of the factors behind the creation, just a few days later, of a new anti-Karzai alliance that brings together all the major leaders of the country’s non-Pashtun ethnic groups — who happen to include some of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords.

Taken together, these events prompt fundamental questions about Afghanistan’s underlying stability as the international community gradually moves to disengage itself from the troubled country.

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